Japan and Utility Are Found Negligent Again in Fukushima Meltdowns

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Lawyers showed a court decision on Tuesday to plaintiffs who sued the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japanese government over the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. The ruling was the largest of about 30 similar lawsuits.CreditKimimasa Mayama/European Pressphoto Agency

TOKYO — A district court in Fukushima, the site of the nuclear meltdowns in 2011 that forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, ruled on Tuesday that the Japanese government and the electric utility that operated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant must pay damages totaling roughly $4.4 million to about 2,900 people.

The ruling was the largest in about 30 similar lawsuits filed by about 12,000 former and current Fukushima residents, and it was awarded even though the majority of the plaintiffs did not flee the area in the aftermath of the disaster. It was the third case in which a court found the Tokyo Electric Power Company — and the second to find the government — negligent in not preventing the meltdowns set off by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

In the latest case, according to Japanese news reports, the court ruled that the government should have been able to anticipate a large tsunami in the region and should have forced Tokyo Electric — known as Tepco — to take preventive measures to protect its plant from catastrophic damage.

The plaintiffs in the case sought a total of 16 billion yen in compensation to help pay for the cost of restoring their living environment. They also asked the court to force Tepco to lower the rate of radiation in the area to an average of about 0.04 microsieverts an hour.

According to 3,000 monitoring posts throughout Fukushima Prefecture, the highest radiation dose was 9.48 microsieverts per hour near the plant on Tuesday, and the lowest was 0.03 microsieverts per hour in Iwaki City, about 33 miles away.

The court awarded the plaintiffs a total of close to 498 million yen and denied the request to force the company to lower the average radiation dosage.

The plaintiffs and their lawyers issued a statement saying the ruling “legally determined the negligence of both the government’s nuclear policy and Tepco, which supported a ‘nuclear myth’ that put a priority on economic interests rather than on safety.”

In a statement, Tepco apologized for the accident.

“We sincerely apologize again that the accident occurred at our Fukushima power plant and caused great trouble and concern to the people of Fukushima and others in society,” the company said. “We will review today’s ruling by the Fukushima District Court and make a response.”

The meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi, which is on the eastern coast of Japan, occurred when 32-foot waves overpowered the plant’s protective sea walls, flooding buildings and destroying diesel-powered electricity generators that were designed to keep critical systems functioning in a blackout.

Both Tepco and the government argued that earthquake predictions made by the government’s own research unit were too vague and that they could not have taken appropriate measures to guard against the flooding that occurred.

In its defense, the government said that before the meltdowns, it did not have the power to force Tepco to take protective anti-flooding measures and that it was authorized to do so only by legislation passed after the accident.

“We understand the court did not fully acknowledge the government’s defense,” said Kazuhiro Okuma, manager of the general affairs division of the Nuclear Regulation Authority. “We will now regulate power stations properly by applying a new regulation standard, which was created based on the nuclear accident.”

In March, the utility and the government suffered their first legal setback in litigation over the accident. In its ruling, the Maebashi District Court in Gunma Prefecture said that the disaster had been “predictable” and that it had been “possible to prevent the accident.”

The court ordered the government and Tepco to pay damages totaling 38 million yen, or about $335,000, to 62 residents who were evacuated from the towns around the Fukushima plant and who relocated to Gunma. Each was awarded a different amount, but the total worked out to an average of $5,400 a person.

The lawsuit was filed by 137 former residents, and the court awarded damages to half of them.

Makiko Inoue and Hisako Ueno contributed reporting from Tokyo.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Court Faults Power Firm And Japan In Meltdowns. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe